Criminal Careers in Cyberspace: Examining Website Failure within Child Exploitation Networks

Westlake, Bryce Garreth; Bouchard, Martin

doi:10.1080/07418825.2015.1046393

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…Yet, while government and non-government agencies, together with multinational corporations (e.g. Google), have been successful in reducing the availability and accessibility of CEM on open access areas of the internet (Ward, 2013; Westlake & Bouchard, 2016), CEM remains ‘endemic’ (Brennan & Hammond, 2016, p. 2) and ‘extremely accessible’ (Chertoff & Simon, 2015, p. 5) in popular online spaces. These include peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks (Brennan & Hammond, 2016; Wolak, Liberatore, & Levine, 2013) – where unsolicited opportunities to view CEM can be provided (see Prichard, Spiranovic, Watters, & Lueg, 2013, p. 996) – and adult pornography websites (Fortin, Paquette, & Dupont, 2018, p. 35; Ray, Kimonis, & Seto, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why internet users’ perceptions of viewing child exploitation material matter for prevention policies

Hunn¹,

Spiranovic²,

Prichard

et al. 2020

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology

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There are claims that the societal appetite for ‘child exploitation material’ is increasing. Yet, Australia’s policy response does not include initiatives to dissuade potential offenders from deliberately viewing child exploitation material for the first time (onset). To critically examine this issue, this paper draws on Situational Crime Prevention theory. It argues that (a) many first-time child exploitation material viewers fit the Situational Crime Prevention construct of the Opportunistic Offender and (b) suggests that current policy overlooks the kinds of non-instrumental factors that increase the risk of onset for this group, including doubts about the criminality and harmfulness of viewing child exploitation material. The paper then empirically examines social attitudes to child exploitation material viewing by presenting the findings of a survey of 504 Australian internet users. Results indicate that a sizeable minority of the participants were: unaware that it is a crime to view certain types of child exploitation material in Australia; and held doubts about the harmfulness of viewing child exploitation material. These findings are used to reflect on how the presence of these non-instrumental factors among ordinary internet users may affect the offending readiness of the Opportunistic Offender. Policy implications are then briefly discussed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why internet users’ perceptions of viewing child exploitation material matter for prevention policies

Hunn¹,

Spiranovic²,

Prichard

et al. 2020

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology

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“…In analyzing CSEM forum members’ online behavior, we build on the criminal career paradigm (Piquero et al, 2003): an analytic approach that breaks down the longitudinal sequence of individual criminal behavior into several distinct dimensions like onset, frequency, duration, and crime mix (Blumstein et al, 1988). Whereas the criminal career paradigm is increasingly being used to examine the criminal trajectories of those who engage in sexual offending (Blokland & Lussier, 2015; Blokland, 2018), up to this date this approach is only sparsely applied to online CSEM offending (Fortin & Proulx, 2019; Westlake & Bouchard, 2015). Westlake and Bouchard (2015) applied the criminal career paradigm at the macro level to identify CSEM websites with the highest survival rate.…”

Section: Different Dimensions Of Forum Members’ Online Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whereas the criminal career paradigm is increasingly being used to examine the criminal trajectories of those who engage in sexual offending (Blokland & Lussier, 2015; Blokland, 2018), up to this date this approach is only sparsely applied to online CSEM offending (Fortin & Proulx, 2019; Westlake & Bouchard, 2015). Westlake and Bouchard (2015) applied the criminal career paradigm at the macro level to identify CSEM websites with the highest survival rate. At a micro level, Fortin and Proulx (2019) examined the content of hard disks belonging to males arrested and convicted for collecting CSEM online and distinguished four developmental patterns based on monthly changes in the nature of the depicted abuse and the age of the child victims: a degenerating spiral pattern (37.5% of the sampled collections)—collections showing an increase in the severity of the depicted abuse and a decrease in the children’s age, the sexualized adolescent pattern (20%)—showing an increase in both the severity of the abuse and the victim’s age, a boy/girl-love pattern (20%)—showing a decrease in severity and victim’s age, and a de-escalation pattern (22.5%)—showing a decrease in severity and an increase in the children’s age.…”

Section: Different Dimensions Of Forum Members’ Online Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Profiling Darkweb Child Sexual Exploitation Material Forum Members Using Longitudinal Posting History Data

Bruggen

Blokland

2021

Social Science Computer Review

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Darkweb fora dedicated to the illegal exchange of child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) continue to thrive. Profiling forum members based on their communication patterns will increase our insights in the dynamics of online CSEM and may aid law enforcement to identify those members who are most influential and pose the highest risk. The current study uses data from a large English language Darkweb CSEM forum that was active between 2010 and 2014, containing over 400,000 posts. Posts were time stamped, categorized based on subforum topic, and linked to individual forum members by nickname. Group-based trajectory modeling was subsequently applied to derive forum member profiles based on members’ posting history. Analyses show that over the course of the observation period, overall activity levels—in terms of total number of posting members and the average number of posts per month per member—fluctuate substantially and that multiple developmental pathways—in terms of monthly patterns in the frequency of posts by individual members—can be distinguished. Theoretical and practical ramifications of these findings are discussed.

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“…It is clear from the literature [25,26,27,28,30,36,47,48,49,50] that online communities play a major role in inspiring, organising, and implementing online crime. Future research needs to focus on how cloud criminals (and/or potential criminals) are able to access the resources they need to undertake a cloud-crimethis will more than likely mean entering spaces of ethical divisiveness, such as the Dark Net or 4chan (or whatever new installment they have access to [e.g., 8chan]).…”

Section: The Role Of 'Communities'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Westlake and Bouchard [47] believe that the Internet has affected crime on websites in three main ways. First, in terms of sexual exploitation, social networking sites have been used to groom victims [49,50,51] and have also been used for phishing [2], for the spread of malware [53] and spam [54], and financial institutions' websites are used to acquire private financial information of customers [30].…”

Section: Cyber-crime and Cloud-crimementioning

confidence: 99%

How Might Crime-Scripts Be Used to Support the Understanding and Policing of Cloud Crime?

Warren

Oxburgh

Briggs

et al. 2017

Human Aspects of Information Security, Privacy and Trust

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Abstract. Crime scripts are becoming an increasingly popular method for understanding crime by turning a crime from a static event into a process, whereby every phase of the crime is scripted. It is based on the work relating to cognitive scripts and rational-choice theory. With the exponential growth of cyber-crime, and more specifically cloud-crime, policing/law enforcement agencies are struggling with the amount of reported cyber-crime. This paper argues that crime scripts are the most effective way forward in terms of helping understand the behaviour of the criminal during the crime itself. They act as a common language between different stakeholders, focusing attention and resources on the key phases of a crime. More importantly, they shine a light on the psychological element of a crime over the more technical cyber-related elements. The paper concludes with an example of what a cloud-crime script might look like, asking future research to better understand: (i) cloud criminal fantasy development; (ii) the online cultures around cloud crime; (iii) how the idea of digital-drift affects crime scripts, and; (iv) to improve on the work by Ekblom and Gill in improving crime scripts.

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Criminal Careers in Cyberspace: Examining Website Failure within Child Exploitation Networks

Cited by 21 publications

References 73 publications

Why internet users’ perceptions of viewing child exploitation material matter for prevention policies

Why internet users’ perceptions of viewing child exploitation material matter for prevention policies

Profiling Darkweb Child Sexual Exploitation Material Forum Members Using Longitudinal Posting History Data

How Might Crime-Scripts Be Used to Support the Understanding and Policing of Cloud Crime?

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